EFF等15组织致信FTC反对X Corp.撤销2022年和解令
阅读原文· cdn.arstechnica.netEFF等15个公共利益组织致信FTC,强烈反对X Corp.以“新所有权下全面转型”为由撤销或修改2022年和解令。信中指出,X Corp.当前行为反而加大了监管必要性:2025年平台泄露28亿条记录;其CEO从联邦政府大规模提取敏感信息;生成式AI模型Grok大量生成儿童性虐待材料及色情图像,已引发35州总检察长联合调查和国际执法行动。组织要求FTC维持原四年两党共识和解令,继续对X Corp.进行监督。
July 2, 2026
Federal Trade Commission
Office of the Secretary
600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Suite CC -5610 (Annex J)
District of Columbia 20580
Re: X Corp. Petition to Set Aside or Modify Order Concerning Twitter, Docket No. C -4316
The 15 undersigned public interest organizations strongly oppose the petition from X Corp., 1
formerly known as Twitter, to set aside or termi nate its 2022 settlement order (“2022 Order”)
that resulted from the company engaging in deceptive practices against its users about its privacy
and advertising practices. For all the reasons outlined below, X Corp.’s petition fails to clear the
demanding legal standard necessary to grant the extraordinary action the corporation is
requesting. To the co ntrary, X Corp. and its current leadership present a serious risk to
Americans’ privacy and data security, demonstrating the need for continued Federal Trade
Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) oversight of the company under the 2022 Order.
The FTC should unequivocally reject X Corp.’s brazen attempt to escape accountability at the
expense of the American people. The Commission should keep the 2022 Order wholly intact for
the duration that the four bipartisan commissioners and the company originally negotiated and
agreed to.
I. Background
The undersigned organizations are advocates for the public interest and routinely engage in
efforts to advance consumer protection, cybersecurity, and privacy rights for all Americans,
including children, teenagers, and senior citizens.
The Commission voted 4 -0 to issue the 2022 Order. 2 In approving the 2022 Order, Republican
Commissioners Wilson and Phillips stated the action was “years in the making” and that it
reflected the FTC’s approach as developed over “two decades of vigorous privacy and data
security enforcement.” 3 Commissioners Wilson and Phillips highlighted that they modeled the
2022 Order’s privacy and information security program requirements on the Trump
Administration’s obligations imposed on Facebook in 2019. The two Republicans praised the
2022 Order for pr oviding “meaningful and effective relief” and noted that the “value of these
types of injunctive provisions and accountability mechanisms has long been clear to us.”
1Petition To Reopen and Set Aside or, in the Alternative, Modify Decision and Order, Twitter, Inc., Docket No. C - 4316 (May 15, 2026), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/c4316twitterpetitionto_reopenpublic.pdf . 2“FTC Charges Twitter with Deceptively Using Account Security Data to Sell Targeted Ads,” Fed. Trade Comm’n (May 25, 2022), https://www.ftc.gov/news -events/news/press -releases/2022/05/ftc -charges -twitter -deceptively - using -account -security -data -sell -targeted -ad s. 3Concurring Statement of Commissioner Christine S. Wilson and Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips, Twitter , Matter No. 2023062 (May 25, 2022), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/05 -25 - 2022%20Twitter%20Joint%20Statement%20Wilson%20Phillips_0.pdf .
Page 2
The 2022 Order was necessitated after X Corp. (then Twitter, Inc.) significantly and on a
prolonged basis violated a previous settlement order that was ratified 5 -0 by the FTC in 2011
(“2011 Order”). 4 As the Department of Justice explained in 2022, “ [f] rom at least May 2013
until at least September 2019, Twitter misrepresented to users of its online communication
service the extent to which it maintained and protected the security and privacy of their
nonpublic contact information.” 5 This alleged deception impacted more than 140 million users.
Moreover, the 2022 Order noted that at the time, the company “still makes most of its money by
directing advertisements to its users,” creating powerful incentives to resume its unlawful
conduct. 6 The unanimous and bipartisan nature of both FTC orders highlights the radical nature
of the proposal X Corp. has presented to the Commission in this proceeding. In fact, Republican
Commissioners Wilson and Phillips noted in 2022 the “bipartisan approval o f this order, one
very much in line with prior orders.”
II. X Corp.’s Current Practices Present An Ongoing Threat To Americans’
Privacy , Necessitating Continued Application Of The 2022 Order
The petitioner contends that the FTC should set aside the 2022 Order, citing “the company’s total
transformation under new ownership.” To the contrary, this transformation under new ownership
and proceeding developments underscore the necessity of proactiv e Commission oversight of
this company under the 2022 Order . Just last year, 2.8 billion records leaked from the platform 7
while the company’s CEO was simultaneously conducting an unprecedented extraction of
millions of Americans’ sensitive information from the federal government, including the Social
Security Administration. 8 X Corp.’s flagship product since its identity change —a generative AI
model called Grok —has created shocking amounts of child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”) and
other nonconsensual sexual imagery. X Corp.’s generation of CSAM and other nonconsensual
imager y was so egregious that it sparked several investigations and lawsuits, including by a
bipartisan coalition of 35 state attorneys general 9 and international law enforcement. 10
4“FTC Accepts Final Settlement with Twitter for Failure to Safeguard Personal Information,” Fed. Trade Comm’n (Mar. 11, 2011), https://www.ftc.gov/news -events/news/press -releases/2011/03/ftc -accepts -final -settlement -twitter - failure -safeguard -personal -information . 5Complaint for Civil Penalties, Permanent Injunction, Monetary Relief, and Other Equitable Relief, United States of America v. Twitter, Inc. , Case No. 3:22 -cv -3070, (N.D. Cal. May 25, 2022), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023062TwitterFiledComplaint.pdf . 6Id . 7“200 Million X User Records Released –2.8 Billion Twitter IDs Leaked,” Forbes (Apr. 1, 2025), https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/04/01/hacker -claims -to -have -leaked -200 -million -x-user -data - records -for -free/ . 8“The Trump administration admits even more ways DOGE accessed sensitive personal data,” NPR (Jan. 30, 2026), https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx -s1 -5684185/doge -data -social -security -privacy . 9Letter from 35 bipartisan attorneys general regarding artificial -intelligence produced deepfake nonconsensual intimate images by xAI, Office of the Attorney General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Jan. 23, 2026), https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/wp -content/uploads/2026/01/2026 -01 -26 -Letter -to -xAI_FINAL.pdf . 10 “ICO announces investigation into Grok,” United Kingdom Information Commissioner’s Office (Feb. 3, 2026), https://ico.org.uk/about -the -ico/media -centre/news -and -blogs/2026/02/ico -announces -investigation -into -grok /; “Commission investigates Grok and X’s recommender systems under the Digital Services Act,” European Commission (Jan. 26, 2026). https://digital -strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission -investigates -grok -and -xs -
Page 3
X Corp.’s foray into artificial intelligence development should prompt greater FTC oversight of
the company’s privacy practices, not less. The largest companies developing generative AI,
including X Corp., have all chosen to do so via collecting immense am ounts of consumer data,
often with no meaningful consent or transparency for the impacted Americans. Given t his
insatiable need for personal data, X Corp. faces a greater incentive to collect and use data from
its social media platform for AI development.
This is not a hypothetical concern. X Corp. has already collected and used consumer data —
including hundreds of millions of posts on the X platform —without meaningful or explicit user
consent for the training of its AI models. 11 The incentive to feed its models is in addition to the
long -standing motivation stemming from the misuse of consumer data for advertising revenue,
which caused X Corp. to come under unanimous and bipartisan FTC settlement orders twice
already.
III. X Corp.’s Arguments Fail To Justify The Extraordinary Action It R equests
A. X Corp. Has Not Met The Standard For Terminating The 2022 Order And
Removing It Would Undermine The Commission’s Enforcement Authority
Section 5(b) of the FTC Act states that the Commission can only reopen and modify an order
when there is a determination that the “conditions of fact or of law have changed as to require
such action or if the public interest shall so require.” 12 The petitioner has a substantial burden to
show that there have been significant changes of law or fact, that the order has become
unnecessary, or that the termination would serve public interest. As the FTC recently explained,
the “burden to establish a change in fact is high; ‘[s]ubsequent changes in factual circumstances,
if falling within the range of contingencies which were reasonably foreseen or foreseeable at the
time of consent negotiations,’ are not sufficient.” 13 A consent decree should only be modified
when there is “nothing less than a clear showing of grievous wrong evoked by new and
recommender -systems -under -digital -services -act ;“Elon Musk summoned to Paris after cybercrime unit raids X office,” USA Today (Feb. 3, 2026). https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2026/02/03/elon -musk -summoned - paris -cybercrime -unit -raid -x-office/88486991007/ . 11 “X’s (Twitter) Grok AI: How Elon Musk Trains AI on Your Tweets Without Asking,” Cambridge Analytica (Jan. 9, 2026), https://cambridgeanalytica.org/guides/xs -twitter -grok -ai -how -elon -musk -trains -ai -on -your -tweets -without - asking -50284/ ;“Here’s How To Stop X From Using Your Data To Train Its AI,” Forbes (July 26, 2024), https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2024/07/26/x -just -gave -itself -permission -to -use -all -your -data -to -train - grok/ . 12 15 U.S.C. § 45(b). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE -2024 -title15/pdf/USCODE -2024 -title15 - chap2 -subchapI -sec45.pdf . 13 Order Denying Petition to Reopen and Vacate or Modify FTC Consent Order, In the Matter of Support King, LLC (SpyPhone.com) , Docket No. C -4756 (Dec. 5, 2025), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/c4756spyfonecommorderdenypetvacateweb.pdf [hereinafter “SpyPhone Order”]; s ee also In re Phillips Petroleum Co., et al ., 78 F.T.C. 1573 (1971); and In re Rite Aid Corp. , 125 F.T.C. 846, 1998 WL 34077376, at *3 (May 18, 1998) (“foreseeable” fact “does not constitute the change in fact necessary to compel reopening”).
Page 4
unforeseen conditions.” 14 The Commission has also expressly stated that the “petitioner’s burden
is not a light one in view of the public interest in the repose and finality of Commission
orders.” 15
X Corp.’s petition falls well short of these requirements. The petition fails to show that there are
any changes in law that have brought the consent decree into conflict with existing law. 16 The
company’s desire to expand artificial intelligence (AI) development and deployment should not
supersede users' privacy and security protections and does not create legal conflict. Additionally,
the cost of compliance is a foreseeable consequence of th e consent order —one that Musk knew
of when purchasing the company, and one that he should have known might affect business
development. As the Commission recently recognized, a company’s mere assertion that the
settlement terms it negotiated and agreed to are too burdensome and costly does not justify a
modification. 17 The requirement to comply with a consent decree, including the costs associated
with that order, are not a “grievous wrong,” but rather core to the FTC’s enforcement authority.
Twitter’s consent decree continues to serve as a critical safeguard for users’ privacy and
security 18 and should not be reopened.
Notably, the FTC unanimously approved both the 2011 and the 2022 orders. 19 And in 2024, the
FTC notified Congress of an investigation into possible violations of Twitter’s consent decree
based on reports that third -party individuals had been given unrestricted access to the company’s
data and systems. 20 The Commission found that there was a “right to be concerned, given that
Twitter’s new CEO [Elon Musk] had directed employees to take actions that would have violated
the FTC’s Order.” 21 A violation would have likely occurred, but “longtime information security
14
United States v. Swift & Co. , 286 U.S. 106, 119 (1932) (finding that even the decade -long transformation of the
meat -packing industry caused by the rise of the grocery business was not a sufficiently significant change or
sufficiently severe burden to merit modification of antitrust consent decree); see also U. S. v. ITT Cont’l Baking Co .,
420 U.S. 223, 237 (1975) (noting in context of FTC antitrust consent decree that consent decrees are treated as
contracts for some purposes but not others, as they have attributes of both contracts and of administrative orders).
15
See Order Granting Petition to Reopen and Set Aside, In the Matter of Chevron Corporation and Hess
Corporation (Chevron/Hess), Docket No. C -4814 (Jul. 17, 2025)
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/c4814chevronhessordervacatingorder.pdf ; see also Federated
Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie , 425 U.S. 394 (1981) (strong public interest considerations support repose and
finality).
16
See SpyPhone Order supra ; In the Matter of Union Carbide Corp. , 108 F.T.C. 184, 1986 WL 722149, at *2
(1986) (denying a petition to modify because the moving party’s asserted change in law did not bring the order
provisions into conflict with existing law).
17
See SpyPhone Order supra .
18
See Letter from Lina Khan infra note 20.
19
See “FTC Accepts Final Settlement with Twitter for Failure to Safeguard Personal Information,” Fed. Trade
Comm’n (Mar. 11, 2011), https://www.ftc.gov/news -events/news/press -releases/2011/03/ftc -accepts -final -
settlement -twitter -failure -safeguard -personal -information ; see also “FTC Charges Twitter with Deceptively Using
Account Security Data to Sell Targeted Ads,” Fed. Trade Comm’n (May 25, 2022), https://www.ftc.gov/news -
events/news/press -releases/2022/05/ftc -charges -twitter -deceptively -using -account -security -data -sell -targeted -ads .
20
Letter from Lina Khan, FTC Chair, to Jim Jordan, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary
Chairman (Feb. 21, 2024), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/letterresponsekhanjordan20240221.pdf .
21
Id. Page 5
employees at Twitter intervened and implemented safeguards to mitigate the risks.” 22 For X
Corp. to argue that there has been no “near violation” of the terms of the consent decree is thus
false. 23
If the Commission eliminates or significantly modifies this consent decree, it does not have an
equivalent means of holding X Corp. accountable for its recidivist violations. Instead, the
Commission would return to the baseline it has with any company, whe re it must investigate and
establish entirely new cases for future violations from the ground up before it can act. The 2022
Order is an individualized order that is a customized, prospective, supervisory instrument that
specifically obligates X Corp., whi ch has already violated a prior FTC order, to maintain specific
safeguards, submit to independent assessment, answer the FTC’s compliance demands, and so
forth —with any future violation directly sanctionable by civil penalty and contempt.
X Corp. now asks the Commission to abandon its enforcement of these clear, individualized
security and privacy mandates, effectively stripping away its most effective deterrence and
accountability mechanisms that protect American consumers against a known repeat offender.
This diminished baseline that X Corp. seeks is especially concerning in light of a recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision which held that Section 13(b) does not authorize the FTC to obtain
equitable monetary relief in federal court. 24 With that avenue narrowed, the 2022 Order remains
among the most meaningful federal accountability tools left — exactly what X Corp. self -
servingly asks the Commission to surrender. The Commission should reject the request.
As a broader matter, X Corp. is asking the Commission to turn away from the agency’s long
record of defending consumers against threats to privacy and data security. Consent decrees
serve several important functions, including remediating harms to consumer s, permitting
companies to avoid litigation by binding themselves to settlement terms, and putting the industry
on notice that certain illegal practices will not be tolerated. The effectiveness of such orders will
diminish if it becomes clear that companie s can easily escape from their obligations. Indeed, if X
Corp. has its way, the FTC will likely face a flood of petitions from companies looking to have
their consent decrees dissolved. Not only would this undermine the Commission’s authority, it
would imp ose an immense burden on the Commission and divert significant resources away
from its critical enforcement and investigatory work. The Commission should deny the petition
and continue to “steadfastly [maintain] that companies that collect, use, share, or transmit
consumers’ personal data must employ reasonable security measures to protect such information
from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.” 25
22 Id. 23 See Petition to Reopen and Set Aside or, in the Alternative, Modify Decision and Order, In the Matter of Twitter, Inc. , Docket Number C -4316, OSCAR No. 615468 (filed May 15, 2026), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/c4316twitterpetitionto_reopenpublic.pdf . 24 See AMG Cap. Mgmt., LLC v. FTC, 141 S. Ct. 1341 (2021), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19 - 508_l6gn.pdf . 25 See SpyPhone Order supra .
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B. The 2022 Order Regulates Data And Privacy Practices, Not Protected
Expression, And Provides No Instrument For Censorship
Decades of FTC law enforcement have made clear that the First Amendment does not exempt
corporations from consumer protection requirements. Requiring X Corp. to protect the privacy of
its consumers and demonstrate to regulators that it is fulfilling its le gal obligations does not
violate the First Amendment. In fact, the government has a substantial interest in protecting
consumer privacy, the free expression that privacy enables, and restricting deceptive commercial
claims. 26
Nonetheless, the petition attempts to recharacterize standard regulatory oversight as an
infringement upon X Corp.’s First Amendment rights. Specifically, X Corp. argues that the
compliance monitoring provisions of the 2022 Order could be turned against th e platform and
that Moody v. NetChoice, LLC , 603 U.S. 707 (2024) protects the company’s editorial discretion.
But neither argument identifies any First Amendment defect in the 2022 Order, which contains
no provision that addresses X’s viewpoints or content moderation. And well -tailored consumer
pri vacy regulations of this kind are fully consistent with the First Amendment.
X Corp.’s primary evidence of alleged “weaponization” actually shows the 2022 Order
functioning as intended and agreed to. When X Corp. (then Twitter) negotiated the 2022 Order, it
assented to create a privacy and information security program (Sec. V of th e 2022 Order) 27 and
to comply with independent assessments (Sec. VI) and FTC monitoring (Sec. XI) to ensure
compliance with that program. Specifically, that means the company consented to set up a
program that identified “any third parties” that gained access to users’ p ersonal data, among
other things (Sec. V(E)(3)(g)). X Corp. granting outside third parties access to internal corporate
systems containing sensitive user data squarely triggers this provision. The FTC’s subsequent
inquiries regarding that third -party acces s were thus an exercise of the agency’s oversight
responsibilities, not an investigation into the social media platform’s editorial viewpoints or
decision -making. The FTC was and is well within its rights to monitor compliance with that
privacy and informa tion security program.
X Corp.’s agreed -upon compliance does not amount to an actual or threatened government
attempt to influence the social media platform’s editorial discretion or content -moderation
decisions. The effect of acceding to X Corp.’s request would be to limit the FTC’s ability to
effectively hold the company accountable for harming the public, violating the law, and breaking
its previous commitments. Granting the petition would do nothing to enhance the First
Amendment rights of Americans, upon which the Commission’s actions never encroached . A
speculative risk that the 2022 Order’s monitoring authority might someday be misused —a risk
that can be addressed by existing mechanisms and tools like judicial oversight —also does not
26 See Nat’l Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. FCC , 555 F.3d 996, 1001 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (discussing importance of consumer privacy); Bartnicki v. Vopper , 532 U.S. 514, 533 (2001) (discussing how privacy protections encourage free speech); Cent. Hudson v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n of New York , 447 U.S. 557, 563 (1980) (discussing harm of deceptive commercial speech). 27 Decision and Order, In the Matter of Twitter, Inc. , Docket No. C -4316 (May 26, 2022). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023062C4316TwitterModifiedOrder.pdf .
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meet the legal standard for terminating it . In approving the 2022 Order, Republican
Commissioners and Trump -appointees Wilson and Phillips stated “...it is important to be clear
that this settlement has nothing to do with Twitter’s potential sale or new ownership, the
company’s content moderation policies , or anything other than the facts alleged in the
Complaint.” 28 The Commission should reject X Corp.’s attempt to retroactively inject First
Amendment grievances into a settled data security and privacy order.
C. X. Corp.’s Successor Arguments Fail To Justify Releasing The Company
From The 2022 Order
The petitioner’s successor arguments misrepresent both the nature of the legal precedents cited,
In re Nat’l Comics Publ’ns, Inc. 29 and In re Toys “R” Us, Inc. ,30 and X Corp.’s current
operational reality. As a basic matter, the 2022 Order —to which Twitter agreed —explicitly
defines the “Respondent” bound by its terms as “Twitter, Inc. (‘Twitter’), and its successors and
assigns.” 31 This Order plainly binds X. Corp. as the surviving entity, and nothing in the petition
or the precedents cited allows a corporate successor to extinguish an order by pointing to its
successor status. Allowing a regulated entity to shed a federal order sim ply by executing an
acquisition or corporate reorganization would render successor -binding clauses meaningless,
turning routine corporate mergers or restructurings into a universal escape hatch for repeat
offenders. In neither decision cited by X Corp. did the Commission terminate an order because
the company in question had argued that it had become a different company.
Indeed, the petition misleadingly cites In re Nat’l Comics Publ’ns, Inc. for the proposition that
the FTC vacates orders “after those entities were acquired and fundamentally reconstituted under
new ownership” —but that is not why the order in that case was set aside. In that 1995 decision,
the FTC terminated an order that had been in effect since 1960 for thirty -five years by invoking a
“Sunset Policy Statement,” which presumes that the public interest requires terminating
competition orders that are more than 20 years old. 32 In other words, the In re Nat’l Comics
Publ’ns, Inc. decision turned on the order’s age, not the petitioner’s identity. In contrast, the
2022 Order is merely four years old —which means that under the logic of In re Nat’l Comics
Publ’ns, Inc. , the 2022 Order has at least sixteen more years to run.
28 Concurring Statement of Commissioner Christine S. Wilson and Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips, Twitter Inc. , Matter No. 2023062, page 7 (May 25, 2022). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/05 -25 - 2022%20Twitter%20Joint%20Statement%20Wilson%20Phillips_0.pdf . 29 Set Aside Order, In re Nat’l Comics Publ’ns, Inc. , Docket No. 7614 (Aug. 22, 1995). https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/federal_register_notices/national -comics -publications -inc.et - al.prohibited -trade -practices -and -affirmative -corrective -actions/950823nationalcomicspublications.pdf . 30 Complaint, Opinion of the Commission, and Final Order, In re Toys “R” Us, Inc. , Docket No. 9278 (May 22, 1996 -Oct. 13, 1998), https://appliedantitrust.com/06_conspiracy/z_case_studies/toys_r_us/1_ftc/toys_r_us_ftc_final_decision10_14_1998 bv.pdf . 31 Stipulated Order for Civil Penalty, Monetary Judgement, and Injunctive Relief, United States of America v. Twitter, Inc., Case No. 3:22 -cv -3070 -TSH, page 3 (N.D. Cal. May, 26, 2022). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ecf_11_stipulated_order.pdf . 32 Set Aside Order, In re Nat’l Comics Publ’ns, Inc. , Docket No. 7614 (Aug. 22, 1995). https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/federal_register_notices/national -comics -publications -inc.et - al.prohibited -trade -practices -and -affirmative -corrective -actions/950823nationalcomicspublications.pdf .
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As for the In re Toys “R” Us, Inc. decision, the p etition erroneously cites a 1998 antitrust ruling
by the Commission to justify “granting modification of order following fundamental changes in
the toy retail market.” That 1998 decision actually granted no modification at all, 33 and the
Seventh Circuit upheld the FTC’s decision. 34 While the Commission did modify the 1998 order
in 2014, 35 it did so after requiring Toys “R” Us to operate under the original order for nearly 16
years —in stark contrast to the mere 4 years since the FTC issued the 2022 Order for X Corp. As
importantly, the 2014 In re Toys “R” Us order modification’s features defeat X Corp.’s
arguments.
First, Toys “R” Us sought only a narrow modification that removed three paragraphs regarding
supplier relationships; Toys “R” Us neither sought nor obtained changes in the order’s core
prohibitions, let alone termination of the entire order. Second, the ch anged circumstance
warranting the modification was a fundamental market shift —particuarly the rise of mega -
retailers Walmart and Target and the emergence of online retailers like Amazon.com —rather
than any transformation of Toys “R” Us itself. Thus the In re Toys “R” Us case is inapplicable to
X Corp. today, which remains as before in the exact same business of operating a social media
platform, still utilizes user data for targeted advertising, and now has new uses and desires for
consumer information in its AI business that make the 2022 Order’s oversight even more vital.
Finally, the exodus of the X Corp.’s senior executives who had overseen its past compliance
failures is legally irrelevant because the FTC orders bind the corporate entity. Those obligations
do not dissolve when the employees who negotiated or administered it depart. If wholesale
turnover of compliance staff could extinguish an order, any respondent could evade its legal
obligations through a reorganization. X Corp. also cannot simultaneously claim credit for a
“new” privacy program while disclaiming the en tity that built it and the 2022 Order that required
it. The program that X Corp. now touts was constructed under the compulsion of the 2022 Order
and validated by an independent assessor that the Commission approved. In other words, the
company’s personnel turnover did not render the 2022 Order obsolete or superfluous.
D. The FTC Rightfully Held X Corp. Accountable For Deceiving Consumers,
Violating The FTC Act, And Violating The 2011 Order
X Corp. contends that the factual predicate of the FTC ’s 2022 complaint has been dismantled by
a California Court of Appeal ’s decision in Yeh v. Twitter, Inc . Because that state appellate court